


just don't lie to me

by Capitola



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (canon-typical), Age Difference, Deception, Episode: c02e008 The Gates of Zadash, Established Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Joking threats of violence, No Smut, No Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26456554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capitola/pseuds/Capitola
Summary: Caleb draws a line. Nott wishes she could walk back lying about her age.
Relationships: Nott | Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	just don't lie to me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this and then more or less sat on it for almost a year because I had no clue how to tag it or if anyone would want to read it. Thanks to aunt_zelda and asterCrash for helping me tag it. 
> 
> Title from "I'm Not Calling You A Liar," by Florence + The Machine.

_“Are you fully grown or are you still growing?”_

_“I'm of child-bearing age. So I'm about somewhere between six and nine.”_

Nott doesn’t even think about the conversation, after it happens. She’s purposefully forgotten about it by Zadash, by next time they go to bed together and it’s just the two of them. She’s forgotten about it right up until she puts her hand on Caleb’s thigh and he tenses up and gives her that pained expression and _oh, of course,_ **_now_ ** _he’s going to act like there’s something wrong here_.

“Little one,” he begins, _little one,_ how she hates that; she knows he means it in tenderness but it comes out condescending. “Little one, forgive me, but I did not...I had avoided thinking about it like that before.”

“Like what?” she says, feigning ignorance.

“You are very young,” Caleb says, so tenderly that she could throw up, and she doesn’t let him finish.

“I’m an _a-dult_ ,” she holds firm. 

“How old did you say you were? Nine years old?”

And she considers coming clean then, all her stories laid bare just to get laid: _My name was Veth, I was 23, I'd be 25 now. I was born the year it rained so hard that the river flooded the road and they said my brother tried to float my cradle like a canoe. I remember the spring two decades ago when the meteor shower lit up the sky like it won’t for another lifetime. I had a husband named Yeza and I could tell you about our wedding in such detail that you’d swear you could taste the cake. I could tell you so much about our son you’d think you were at his naming_. She doesn’t, because it might come out sounding like some little monster’s fancy of what it would be to be a real girl. And she’d be in the exact same situation, except she’d have made it fucking _sad._

“Give or take,” she says. 

And Caleb sighs, and thumbs at the cover of the book he’s still got strapped to him, the way he does when he’s trying to think. “I know it is different for your people, but you must understand...I might have children older than you.” 

“But you don’t.” She’s fairly certain of that statement. She knows Caleb is keeping plenty of things from her, nasty things, because sometimes she says something and his face goes blank, like she’s been grabbing around on a shelf and broke a jar that had a ghost inside. But she doesn’t think any of those ghosts are his own children he’s missing or mourning.

“I don’t,” he echoes, and she believes him, “but I might have.”

Nott isn’t in the mood to argue, she _was_ in the mood to feel and finger and kiss each other stupid, the way they’ve done in a field the evening they broke out of jail and a barn when it was storming and an inn they had to slip out of without paying, but this conversation is setting her teeth on edge and her stomach churning, so she sighs and lies down and curls up next to him. He puts his arm around her and holds her close. 

“You know you are very dear to me,” he says, and she nods against his ribcage. “I just — I could not —”

“I know, I know. It’d be a lot worse if you were some fucker who was into that fucking shit. Then I’d have to kill you, and stew your organs, and try to make jerky from the horrible stringy meat on your legs.” There’s a middle option she’d vastly prefer where he would acknowledge that Nott was an adult too, in her own right, without knowing about Veth, and they could go back to how things were, but she’s realizing that that’s not how it’s going to be. She wonders how long it will be before she’s sure that he would believe her about Veth, and what he would say if he finds out she has a husband. _If_ she still has a husband, if Yeza hasn’t already let some pretty thing get set up in their house, maybe one of those sisters from the bakery who’d be all too happy to comfort the grieving widower. _That_ thought makes her even more sick to her stomach, and she hates that because it makes her a fucking hypocrite, out here learning magic and killing monsters and sleeping with a wizard and she worries that her husband might be, Lady forbid, _trying to move on_ _from her death._

Caleb only barely laughs at her joke about stewing his organs, and she wonders if _that’s_ a ghost of his she’s knocked loose, and when and if he’ll tell her about it. She wants to put a stop to every bad thing that ever happened to him, knock _all_ the ghosts loose so she can exorcise the fuck out of them. 

“We should go to sleep anyway,” she says. “It’s pretty late, right?”

He thinks for a moment, looking out the window. “It’s about half an hour to midnight.”

“And we can sleep like this?” Sex is negotiable, she has decided, at some later date, but she is not sure what she would do if he said cuddling was out of the question.

“Yes, this is...fine. Better than fine. Comforting.” His face relaxes, and if he were anyone besides Caleb, she’s sure that he would smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated <3


End file.
